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Monday, July 8, 2013

A ticking time bomb as ‘Allah’ row returns to court

Ng said Allah is central for Malay-speaking Christians. — Pictures by Choo Choy May - See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/a-ticking-time-bomb-as-allah-row-returns-to-court#sthash.d4mVh1wU.dpuf
Ng said Allah is central for Malay-speaking Christians. 
Underlying that concern, however, are growing fears that Islam’s followers are leaving the faith that formed part of the very identity of the Malaysian Malay.
Debra Chong, The Malay Mail
The tussle between Malaysia’s Muslim majority and their Christian countrymen for the rights to “Allah” appears to be back on track to be argued in court, but the continued delay in its hearing risks deepening the cracks within Malaysia’s religious communities after the issue’s protracted run on the political stage.
The dispute first arose in 2008 when the federal government banned the Catholic Church from publishing the Middle Eastern word “Allah” to refer to the Christian god in the Malay section of its weekly paper, Herald, ostensibly over concern that the majority Muslims would be confused by the similarity of the name to Islam’s god and worship another.

Underlying that concern, however, are growing fears that Islam’s followers are leaving the faith that formed part of the very identity of the Malaysian Malay.

The government sought to prevent that, but in so doing, stepped on the toes of the Christians who rose up to defend what they saw as an attempt to strip away their constitutional rights and the essence of their religious identity.

“There is nothing more central to a religion than its Scripture. Without Scripture, there is no authentic religious identity,” said Ng Kam Weng, research director of Christian think-tank Kairos Research.

“Allah is central for Malay-speaking Christians. What is at stake is not just the ‘Allah’ word but Christian liturgy, prayers and worship songs that are based on scriptural references to God, or ‘Allah’ for Malay-speaking churches,” he told The Malay Mail Online in a recent interview.

The problem however in the perception of Malay-speaking Christians, seen as an anomaly in Peninsular Malaysia but not in Sabah or Sarawak where a large proportion of the Bumiputeras are devout churchgoers and have prayed in the national language and their native tongues for centuries.

Christians are Malaysia’s third-largest religious population at 2.6 million people, according to statistics from the 2010 census, behind Muslims and Buddhists.

The Bumiputera and Malay-speaking Christians form about 64 per cent, or close to two-thirds of that figure.

“If the word ‘Allah’ is banned the life of the Malay church will be suffocated,” Ng said.

The Christian scholar said that the “Allah” row marked only the tip of a more pervasive problem as the various state Islamic authorities have also banned non-Muslims from using up to 42 words that include “Iman, Injil, Nabi and Wahyu”.

“Without these words Christianity, or any religion for that matter, ceases to exist or operate meaningfully,” he said.

“That’s why Christians have no choice. What else can the Church do but to seek justice and appeal to the civil court to redress this injustice that the government has imposed on them? The Church would rather not seek any quarrel with anyone or the authorities,” he added.


Lawrence is confident the ‘Allah” dispute will be resolved in the courts soon.
The Court of Appeal is set to handle the case management tomorrow for the federal government’s bid to ban the Catholic Church from publishing the word “Allah” to refer to the Christian god in the Herald.

The Catholic Church had challenged the Home Ministry’s decision and won its lawsuit at the High Court after the judge made the landmark ruling that “Allah” is not exclusive to Islam, as the government would have Malaysians believe.

But the Najib administration has since offered an olive branch to the religious tussle that turned into a hot-button election issue, especially in Sabah and Sarawak where Christianity is the majority religion among the electorate who have long been considered a vote bank for the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.

Taking into account the public religious sentiment, the Najib administration offered a 10-point solution agreeing to the use of “Allah” in the Malay bibles.

Herald editor Father Lawrence Andrew is confident that the dispute will be resolved in the courts soon, after a four-year delay that has seen the case being fought in the political arena in the run up to the 2011 Sarawak state polls and more recently in the May 5 general election.

He told The Malay Mail Online that the church has filed several additional documents to support its case and is praying that the High Court judgment will be upheld.

For now though, he is praying for an amicable resolution to the trial.

“We want them to respond,” Lawrence said, referring to the Attorney-General’s Chambers representing the government, and the six state Islamic councils plus the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association (MACMA) that the Court of Appeal had allowed to join in the dispute.

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